2022 MLB Season (1 Viewer)

[David Norman]

Appears Verlander made one of the first moves of the offseason that wasn't pretty much 100% guaranteed though not surprising since he didn't really have
a contract beyond next year. Proving he was healthy, quite effective, and making it clear he's committed to a few years rather than just a one year at a time mindset
I guess should help.

I'm still betting he returns to Houston with a 3-4 year guarantee which should have plenty of proven players both on offense and bullpen to make his push for 300 legit (244 now) as well as probably getting him within spitting distance of 4000 K's (3200 currently)

I'm really hoping he makes 300 just to make the "NOBODY WILL EVER WIN 300 again" nabobs that have come out of the woodwork over the last decade go away for awhile.
Though they probably won't given the "Players make too much money and none of them won't to stick around like in the old days" people still feel the need to announce
it again and again despite the preponderance of the evidence over the last 40 years have not only proven them just plain wrong, but incredibly wrong.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Sure looked to me like nobody was going to win 300 again, especially Justin (a few years ago, he looked as done as done could be).

Going forward, it will be increasingly difficult to get to 300, due to pitchers not logging as many decisions as they used to (declining number of innings per season, and pitches per game means fewer wins per year).

 

[David Norman]

20 year gaps pretty common in the 300 win folks over the last 100+ years. My argument is the 80-2000's were the anomaly not the norm and no we're just going back to where baseball was for close to 80 years. Higher salaries and Relief Pitching to a point may have increased 300 game winners, not depressed them

Not counting the 10 or 11 pitchers won most/all their games under Deadball and even worse Pre 1900 (entirely different rules) there are only 15 members anyway so 1-2 per decade on average, but even more drastic when the time periods are broken down.

One Pitcher debuted in the 20's and pitched his entire career Pre WWII during the 1st Yankee era, 2 that debuted 1940's and pitched mostly post WWII- early 1960's expansion era (Wynn and Spahn). None that really started pitching the 1930's though technically Wynn pitched 3 games as a 19yo and went 0-2 in 1939 before winning his 1st in 1941, 1950's, 1970's, or 1990's+(so far). The 2 odd eras were the 1960-1980 era (6 guys basically debuted in the mid 1960's and won #300 in hte 80's) -- high innings, lots of CG, RP weren't really a thing, but still mostly low offensive eras, and mid 1985-early 2000's era (4 debuted in the mid-late 80's and won #300 in the 2000's) -- much fewer CG, much higher RP reliance, but at least the first 10-12 years were relatively lower offense, bigger strike zone, pre steroid era or at least the era where a minority of the hitters were using. You can argue about Clemens being one of the Steroid Users (no argument from me), but I'll counter with the Greenies of the 60-90's which I could argue benefitted pitchers relatively far more than hitters (of course then you can get into a whole different argument about how much similar items were used Pre WWII and by which players specifically).

You can also make at least one big argument with Bob Feller who missed close to 4 seasons in what should have been his prime. Though just as likely if he had pitched 300 + innings/yr full time from age 22-26 if his arm would have exploded like so many other phenoms. I'm not sure there were any other pitchers who might have hit 300 in that era who lost significant time in the military though I have found too many 250+ win pitchers who missed several years. Early Wynn only missed 1-1.5 seasons to the military (45 and early 46) and won 40 games from 1941-1944 playing against 2nd tier players so who knows if he would have dropped off the list if he had to pitch those years against Prime Players

Verlander is really the first guy pitching I'd call who debuted and pitched the majority of his career in the 2nd Offensive Explosion era. Lefty Grove was the one pre WWII guy in the 20/30's which was comparable and in the 1st Superball era. I could make a little argument about Randy Johnson being a transition play like Pete Alexander, but 150-200 of his wins came before the huge Steroid era and the shrunken strike zone of the early-mid 2000+'s -- he got the Glavine/Maddux strike zone with 100mph stuff for a lot of his career.

Ebbs and Flows with around a 20-25 year cycle, but there were only 3 new 300 Game winners from basically 1925-1985 and almost 4 separate 15+ gaps where nobody did it-- 1925-1941, 1942-1961, 1963-1982, 1990-2003, and now 2009- ????. Entire HOF careers who never played when a pitcher became a new 300 winner. If we go back to a time where basically 1 pitcher debuting every 20-30 years does it, it won't be that far off the reservation.

 

[Jeffrey D]

I saw that the Yanks are ready to offer Judge 8 years, neighborhood of $300 million. I think 8 years is too long of a contract- I was predicting 7/$280.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Might be a touch too long... but really, likely not quite enough actual dollars anyhow... He's probably going to get something closer to 8/$320M (or maybe 7/$310M perhaps to beat Scherzer's current AAV), if not more, from somebody...

_Man_

 

[Jeffrey D]

Wow- the Rangers sign DeGrom to a 5/$185 deal! Did anyone see this coming, and is it a good idea to give him this much money? He’s been nicked up lately.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Wow- the Rangers sign DeGrom to a 5/$185 deal! Did anyone see this coming, and is it a good idea to give him this much money? He’s been nicked up lately.

It's a big gamble on the Rangers part so we'll see what happens in the next five years.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Verlander signs with Mets.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I have always been of the opinion that athletes should always pursue their best financial options. So while I would have preferred for Verlander to stay in Houston, I am not surprised that he chased the $$. The Astros have been successful, at least partly, due to their ability to control costs as they pertain to player salaries, so I didn't them to expect to match the best offers that Verlander could entertain. Good luck to Verlander, but not too much should the Mets face the Astros in 2023's WS.

- Walter.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I have always been of the opinion that athletes should always pursue their best financial options. So while I would have preferred for Verlander to stay in Houston, I am not surprised that he chased the $$. The Astros have been successful, at least partly, due to their ability to control costs as they pertain to player salaries, so I didn't them to expect to match the best offers that Verlander could entertain. Good luck to Verlander, but not too much should the Mets face the Astros in 2023's WS.

- Walter.

He finally got his WS title so it's about the monies now.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Trea Turner signs with Phils for 11/300M.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yankees fans can rejoice as Brian Cashman signed a contract extension for four more years.

 

[David Norman]

He finally got his WS title so it's about the monies now.

2nd ring, but 1st individual win I guess

 

[Robert Crawford]

2nd ring, but 1st individual win I guess

2nd ring doesn't have the same pull as the first one. At his age, maximizing monies is the goal.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Yankees fans can rejoice as Brian Cashman signed a contract extension for four more years.

Maybe a vomit emoji should be an option to post at the bottom.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Maybe a vomit emoji should be an option to post at the bottom.

That’s how Yankees fans feel like doing

 

[David Norman]

Trea Turner signs with Phils for 11/300M.

That's impressive start to the SS sweepstakes -- 11yrs pushing him at least to 40yo.. I wonder how long it will take the othe dominoes to start falling now.

I though Turner was the cream the crop and significantly better than Correa who seems to get ranked higher on many evaluator boards. Bogaerts was #2 on my personal ranking then Correa. A lot was just based on Playing Time over the last 4-5 years along with actual performance on the field
Swanson from the Braves would have been 4th or 5th which is significantly higher than I would have placed him 2 years ago.

I really wonder what that means for the Dodgers now. Will they go hard after one of those 3 or do they think Lux can handle it defensively esp after he finally seemed to find
his footing at 2D. I know they wanted to get under the Luxury Tax after a couple big signing years and another 30M salary was going to make that difficult.

Atlanta native Swanson might want to stay in Atlanta, but the Braves really haven't shown much interest in keeping too many of those post arb 2nd long contract players plus
they have a younger cheaper version who many evaluators think is already defensively ready in V Grissom. The question is whether they think his late season
offensive slump was just that or if the league finally caught up with him after 4-6 weeks of insane offense. They also have Albies signed for another several years at 2B
so that leaves an easy opening.

 

[MartinP.]

Trea Turner signs with Phils for 11/300M.

I guess all those rumors the past two years that Trea wanted to go back East were true.
The worst kind of rumors--true rumors, lol!

Trea, I enjoyed watching you play for the Dodgers the past two years.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Giants reportedly offers Judge around 360M. The number of years or deferred money isn't known yet.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Judge may very well go w/ the Giants since they've got the available funds now, have proven themselves successful at getting deep into the postseason quite often enough (and winning it all now and then) and was apparently his fan favorite growing up in California (and used to dream of playing for them).

_Man_